Backstage Beauty: Giles Autumn/Winter 2012

It's official: ponytails are the hairstyle of the season, if what we've seen backstage at London Fashion Week is anything to go by.

Toni & Guy's International Artistic Director Indira Schauwecker worked with Paul Hanlon to create a youthful, innocent and fresh version of the classic ponytail backstage at Giles.

Schauwecker told us that "we left the hair pure and simplistic because we didn't want to overpower the amazing clothes. What we've done is simply tucked away the hair to create the look of a portrait".

The hair was then tucked away from the face, with clips left in at the sides of the head, and was blow dried with a diffuser in place of a brush for a natural-looking finish. The hair was then pulled back into a low ponytail at the nape (it's the place to wear your pony next season), and a loose elastic band was pulled down the hair and then up again for that "falling off, distressed" look.

Our favourite thing about the hair this season? The burnt ribbons that were wrapped around the ponytails, to tie in with Giles' destroyed tailoring theme from the collection.

Marion Newman used these ribbons as inspiration for the nails too. She mixed CND colours to create a super glossy, off-beige shade on the fingers and a burnt brown colour on the toes, to represent the darker, charred part of the ribbon.

She described the look as "beautiful and young, but that out all night, worse for wear take on it". The smoky eyes were key to this, which she created by blending Harvest from Mac's new A/W lip palette and Groundwork Paint Pot on top of the lid, to give the impression of dark circles. (And we usually spend so long trying to cover ours up...)

Skin was left clear to bring out the models own natural glow, brows were brushed up and no mascara was used to emphasise the sunken, but "heroic" eyes.